


Spitfire (Yours to Shake)

by riverlight



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:39:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverlight/pseuds/riverlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“All right, that’s it,” Eames says, slapping the file shut and shoving back his chair. “I’ve had enough. Fucking or fighting, Arthur, your choice.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spitfire (Yours to Shake)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tipitina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tipitina/gifts).



> This was written for [i-reversebang](http://i-reversebang.livejournal.com), inspired by [this amazing art](http://trinitrine.livejournal.com/43199.html) by [tipitina](http://tipitina.livejournal.com) (NSFW, fair warning).

“All right, that’s it,” Eames says, slapping the file shut and shoving back his chair. “I’ve had enough. Fucking or fighting, Arthur, your choice.” 

Arthur narrows his eyes. “Pardon?” he says, pushing to his feet. 

“Don’t feign ignorance, darling, it doesn’t suit you,” Eames says, and pretends not to see Arthur’s look of flat-mouthed displeasure. “You heard me. I don’t particularly care what it is that has those heavenly trousers of yours in a twist, but this has got to stop. I’m certainly the last one to complain about a spot of moodiness, but if this carries on much longer it’s going to jeopardise the job.” 

The job itself is pretty simple, if rather more black-and-white than their jobs usually are: hired by a woman whose abusive gangster ex-husband is holding their daughter hostage, with the goal of finding out where he’s keeping the kid. Eames is well-acquainted with the criminal underbellies of both London and Mombasa, and the mark is a scumbag even by his jaded standards; he wouldn’t go quite so far as to say there’s honour among thieves, but involving children is beyond the pale. 

It’s rather novel to find himself for once entirely on the side of the angels, and surprisingly, he’s rather enjoying the experience.

Perhaps it’s the precisely the fact that there’s something more than corporate secrets at stake that has Arthur so wound up; after two years on the run with Cobb and half a year cultivating a very secretive and therefore high-stakes reputation for performing inception, Arthur’s not used to this kind of cut-and-dried good-vs-evil game either, Eames reckons. He’s got a photo of the little girl—Savitri, age 7, flushed and beaming after her first bharanatyam performance, and even in the photo the kind of charming that fairly leaps from the frame—over his desk, and Eames has seen the way he turns to it again and again while he’s working. Little wonder he’s tense. 

Perhaps Eames oughtn’t be provoking him with comments about his trousers, but really. He’s happy to play on the side of the angels, but he’s not _dead._

Arthur’s eyes flash. “Out of line, Mr. Eames,” he says, flatly, that disdainful tone he does so well. Eames has seen him reduce extractors new to dreamshare to shaky silence with that particular steel-under-velvet tone. 

Eames, however, is nowhere close to new to dreamshare. 

“No, Arthur, not hardly,” he says, and lets a little steel into his own voice. He advances round the table so he’s only a pace away from Arthur. “Two days from now we have to kidnap some incredibly dangerous people to get them to give up secrets they’d really rather not give up, and if we don’t, a little girl’s life is at risk,” he says, watching Arthur’s face fold into something tense and angry. “And if we’re going to do our jobs properly, we’ve got to be on top form.”

“You think I don’t know that, Eames?” Arthur says. “You think I’m not aware of that? Lack of awareness is not the problem here,” he says, practically biting off the syllables. “It’s not your job to deal with contingency plans for shootouts with those very dangerous people, or to handle dealings with the criminal element in this city where, I might add, none of us except Radha speaks the local languages. It’s not your job, just to give one _very hypothetical_ example,” he hisses, and he’s right up in Eames’ face now, “to figure out how to deal with the fact that our architect is coming back to dreamshare after nearly a year away and a fairly disastrous last job, but it is mine, Eames, it is _my_ job to deal with all of that, so don’t you talk to me about jeopardising a damn thing.” 

“I’m trying to keep you from it, you ungrateful bastard,” Eames says, shoving at him, and he’s actually mad now, he can’t help it; Arthur always does seem to get right under his skin. “It’s not my job, no, but I’m certainly going to pay for it if things go pear-shaped, aren’t I, so pardon me for trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.” 

Arthur snatches at his wrist and smacks it away. “And you thought you’d do that by picking a fight? Forgive me if I’m sceptical of the efficacy of that plan.”

It’s Arthur’s standard delivery, cool and dismissive, but his eyes are glittering and his hair is loose and curling round his face, his hands clenched at his sides. Eames laughs, just sharply enough that it’ll make Arthur madder. “Arthur, pet,” he says, “you’ve been snapping at Cobb all morning. You nearly made Radha _cry._ If you think you don’t need to let off some steam, you’re mistaken.” Because it’s second nature, and because he doesn’t want Arthur _thinking,_ he leers a little, and adds, “I can take one for the team,” in his best lascivious voice. 

Arthur’s gaze is calculating. “And if I say no?”

Eames shrugs. If Arthur does say no—well, Arthur being testy is hardly pleasant, and it’ll be potentially quite painful, he wasn’t lying. But they’ll muddle along. It’d be vastly easier if Arthur were his usual infuriatingly competent and deceptively deadly self, but—they’d get the job done. 

But if he says that to Arthur, he’ll likely dig in his heels and insist nothing is wrong out of sheer perversity, and really, Eames’ life will be much simpler if that doesn’t happen. So he puts a little weariness into his tone, and says, “well, Arthur, we’ll muddle along without you, somehow,” because he’s known Arthur for years now, and nothing gets to Arthur like feeling like he’s not necessary. 

Sure enough, Arthur shoves his chair back under the table and shuffles his papers into a neat stack, slapping them down onto the tabletop. “Fine,” he says, coolly. “If it’ll get you to leave me alone, Eames, I’ll do whatever the hell you want.” 

Eames snorts, because Arthur’s left that  _wide_ open for him. “Well, darling, I said fucking or fighting,” he drawls, “but I did also say it was your choice, so the question’s not what _I_ want.”

“Fine,” Arthur says, shortly, striding over to the PASIV where it sits on a side table, weighting down some of Cobb’s endless drift of blueprints. “In that case, I’m dreaming,” he adds, pointedly, and tugs out two lengths of tubing. 

* * *

Arthur dreams them into—well, nothing he’d have expected, actually, and maybe that says more about Arthur’s state of mind than anything else. Eames has known Arthur for years, in dreams and out of them, and he’s always been consummately professional, the kind of dreamer who creates sleek elegant dreams seemingly without effort; there are more creative dreamers out there, other people Eames would turn to if he wanted something truly exotic or whimsical, but Arthur has always been—stylish. 

But there’s an edge to him, too; Arthur’s stylish like a gun is stylish, beautiful but dangerous. Both his body and mind honed, a weapon all the more dangerous because of the ease with which it can hide in plain sight.

In other words, he’d been expecting something understated but threatening, the kind of dreamscape designed to cow Eames into submission simply by virtue of its sheer flawlessness, something chock-full of the kind of subtle, subliminal cues that would reinforce Arthur’s mastery of dreamspace without being blatant about it. 

But this is not that; this is gritty and run-down, the kind of gym Eames last saw in the kind of back-of-beyond small town he didn’t think Arthur had ever visited. The room smells of sweat and testosterone and the decor, if such it could be called, is all loose weights and heavy bags and 1980s-vintage motorcycle posters on the walls. 

And here’s Arthur in a vest and athletic shorts, looking lean and lithe and dangerous. Eames quirks an eyebrow, before he can help it. 

“Come on,” Arthur says, mouth a flat line, ignoring him entirely. He ducks under the ropes of the boxing ring and settles lightly onto the balls of his feet, hands loose fists at his sides. “You wanted to fight, Eames? Let’s fight.” 

* * *

It’s Arthur’s dream so he could dream up whatever Hollywood scenario he wanted, _Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon_ -esque mid-air acrobatics or some kind of urban warfare battle where his military training would give the advantage, but instead it’s just this, this gritty, down-market gym that Eames’ subconscious apparently thinks should be populated with burly, sweaty, tattooed men. It’s not Eames’ preferred style of fighting, particularly, but never let it be said that he can’t roll with the punches. 

The thing is, Eames is a forger, which means he’s good at reading people. He's got to be, or he’d never be able to do what he does. And while he makes it a practice to try not to analyse his colleagues too closely, because that way lies unwanted knowledge and forced intimacy, sometimes he can't help it; his blasted brain ticks right along and makes connections whether he likes it or not. 

And so, here he is in dreamspace with Arthur, trying to jolly Arthur out of his black mood while Cobb and Radha are topside attending to the details of the actual job, because he’s been watching Arthur become steadily more irritated with his contact-making and his weapons acquisition: has watched him slam down the phone in tight-lipped anger, has watched him storm around the workspace, face a picture of foiled action and promised vengeance. It’s Arthur’s secret, Eames suspects, that he yearns to be respected and liked, to be _good,_ and this job has stripped him bare, knocked down his defences. All that coiled emotion that he normally keeps tightly under wraps is utterly on view, and if Eames were still the uncaring criminal he was at twenty, he wouldn’t even have to think before knowing exactly what to do to push Arthur’s buttons, incapacitate him totally. Luckily for Arthur, though, Eames is decidedly more mature than he was then; now all he wants is for Arthur to get over himself so he can do the job properly. 

A fight, Eames thinks, should do it nicely. He isn’t one to lose a fight without good reason, but if giving Arthur some sense of power while the job spirals out of control lets him go back to work with his usual brusque impatience rather than this uptight, vicious sharpness to everything he does, Eames will let him win, and gladly. 

* * *

“Fight me, god damn it,” he says, and Arthur laughs. 

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” he says, and darts in again, light on his feet. He flicks a quick jab at Eames’ face, a quicker right hook, so fast Eames can barely dart aside. “I count two hits already, what more do you want?” 

What Eames wants is for Arthur to quit with this polite gym-rules boxing. If what Eames is aiming for is exhaustion he’ll never get it this way, this neat, one-two-three by-the-books flurry. Oh, Arthur’s playing that he’s fighting, and because he’s Arthur he means it, to an extent; he’s heaving for breath, now, cheeks flushed, t-shirt transparent with sweat. But it’s not enough. He wants Arthur mad, because if Arthur’s mad at him, then Arthur’s not thinking. 

“I want,” Eames says, huffing a little, “I want you to stop pussyfooting around, Arthur, come on. _Hit_ me. Come on, you wanker, I know you can.”

“Yeah?” Arthur says. “If I hit you, can we be done with this charade and let me get back to _work,_ already?” It’s meant to be a distraction, but Eames knows him better than that; he nails a solid kick to Arthur’s knee, and Arthur grunts. Real pain: good. 

“Doesn’t it just make you furious, Arthur?” he says, goading. “The way Cobb swans about, pretending that nothing’s wrong when we both know the man’s bloody overwhelmed and afraid he’s lost his touch?” He throws a kick and Arthur blocks him then kicks him in return. “And Radha, Arthur, Radha, bursting into tears in the dining room like she’s never been on deadline before, never dealt with life-or-death consequences.”  

_Do it,_ Eames thinks, _come on, take me down, already,_ because Arthur is panting for breath and red-faced and he’s held out for longer than Eames expected, but if he can just get Arthur out of his _mind_ for a minute, for god’s sake, then maybe they can be done with this, already. Arthur _needs_ this, he thinks, needs to feel like he’s in control. Like he’s on top of things, and that’s a metaphor if Eames has ever heard one. If he can just make Arthur _angry_ enough—he lands a solid punch to Arthur’s kidney, and Arthur grunts. 

Eames’ projections are gathering, now, drifting up to the benches to watch them fight, some of them leaning on the ropes, eyes avid. “And then there’s me,” Eames goes on. “There’s me, right? Pissing you off, making you fight me, doesn’t it make you _angry,_ Arthur?”

Eames is watching him, so he sees the moment Arthur’s stance changes. “I,” he says, heaving breath, “I don’t much like being challenged, Eames,” and he darts in, hooks an ankle round Eames’ knee, and tumbles them to the mat. 

Only it’s not as if Eames can just let him win; even if he were so inclined, Arthur would know, which would defeat the whole point of this endeavour. Eames grins up at Arthur’s straining face, red with effort and visibly bruising already. “Arthur, darling, if this is a challenge for you, you need to get out more,” he says, and flips them, grinding Arthur into the mat. 

This is the point at which Arthur is supposed to throw him off, pin him. He’s seen Arthur fight fifty times, a hundred: training exercises, mostly, but actual fights, too, playful scraps with military buddies, not to mention fights for his life on the occasional job gone wrong. This is the point at which Arthur is supposed to take advantage of his superior flexibility and his greater facility with this kind of wrestling, counter Eames’ greater weight with a twist of his hips and throw Eames off.

Except when he leans his weight into Arthur, just for a second Arthur goes entirely still. His breath gusts out, a warm rush against Eames’s cheek, and his eyes flutter shut. He surges up again, the next instant, heaves his weight against Eames’ grip, but Eames caught that moment of stillness, and his forger’s mind is ticking away like always, and—oh, he had it all wrong, didn’t he? 

You don’t get to be a forger of Eames’ calibre, though, without knowing how to test a hypothesis, so Eames lets gravity have its way, pushes down so that Arthur feels every kilo of the two stone Eames has on him. And Arthur shivers, and tilts his chin up, before his eyes snap open again, narrowed and wary. “Oh, Arthur,” Eames breathes, and slides his forearms onto the mat next to Arthur’s head, cages him in. “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.”

“Eames,” Arthur says, sharply, testing Eames’ grip. “Let me go. You win, all right? Is that it? Is that what you wanted? You win.” 

“Mm, no,” Eames says, distracted by the flush over Arthur’s cheekbones, the way his breath is heaving, the quick pressure of his ribs against Eames’ torso, the convulsive grip of his fingers on the cotton of Eames’ t-shirt. “I’ll take your concession, Arthur, but I rather think we’re not done here after all.”

“Eames,” Arthur hisses, and there’s a faint thread of alarm in his voice now. “Let me up, damn it. I’ve got work to do, or had you forgotten?”

“Mm, no,” Eames says, ignoring this; the ten minutes on the clock topside isn’t going to matter one bit to Arthur’s to-do list. Eames slides his own fingers together and presses them against the mat so he has leverage to rock against Arthur, just a little. “Change of plans. I’ll move if you ask me to, but I did offer you fucking as well as fighting, if you recall,” he says, and tilts his hips into Arthur’s, suggestively. 

“Fucking—” Arthur says, sharp. "You think I want to fuck, Eames?” 

“I think, darling,” Eames says, “that you’d rather like to be pinned down and made to lose control, and while I’ll fight you for it if that’s what you really want, I really think fucking’s a much more enjoyable way to accomplish the same ends, don’t you?” 

“Eames,” Arthur says, and stumbles to a stop. Eames watches the convulsive movement of his throat as he swallows, takes in the hectic blaze of colour in Arthur’s face, and is swamped with an unaccountable surge of tenderness. 

“All right, darling, here’s how it’s going to go,” he murmurs, and settles himself more firmly, thighs on either side of Arthur’s. “I’ll move if you tell me so in full sentences. Do you want me to move?” Arthur is not, he doesn’t think, the kind of man one can rush; the fact that he’s so uncompromising is part of what makes him an excellent point man, but in this case Eames is going to have to tread lightly. “Arthur,” he says again, prompting, when Arthur is stubbornly silent. “Tell me to move.”

Arthur’s silent for a long enough moment that Eames wonders whether he hasn’t got this all wrong, after all, and now he’s cocked it all up, long enough that he begins to frantically grope for some kind of apology that will adequately convey the fact that despite his carefully cultivated lewd persona he really has no intention of sexually harassing anyone, Arthur least of all, and this was all a terrible mistake on his part, terribly sorry—when Arthur squeezes his eyes shut, and, just a fraction of a movement, shakes his head no. 

“Arthur,” Eames says, carefully, checking. “Forgive me, but you have to be clearer, darling, or I have to stop. Do you want me to move?” 

“Two conditions,” Arthur says, as matter-of-fact as he always is, enough that Eames could almost believe he was unaffected by all this, except for the way Arthur’s holding himself utterly still, the way he still hasn’t opened his eyes. “One, you stop if I say so. And two, this doesn’t affect the job.” His voice is rough, scraping out of his throat, and he has to swallow to finish the sentence.

“Those are acceptable conditions,” Eames says. His own throat feels suddenly dry, too; despite how often he’s flirted with Arthur over the years, he’s mostly only ever meant it as a way to rile him up a little, keep him off balance. This sudden turnabout, finding himself here with Arthur gripping his t-shirt so tightly he’s pulled it askew over Eames’ collarbone, feels startling. 

“I’m serious, Eames,” Arthur says, scowling up at him now, a little wrinkle between his eyebrows. “You take my orders, topside, when you have to. This doesn’t change a thing.”

He thinks about it for a second. Sex changes things, of course it does, but he and Arthur are professional enough it won’t bother them unduly, he thinks. “All right,” he says, and whatever Arthur hears in his voice must be convincing, because Arthur sighs, body going suddenly loose and relaxed beneath Eames’. 

They’re still in the middle of the boxing ring, and while the assembled projections have drawn back a few steps, they’re still in Eames’ subconscious; most of them are peering at them interestedly, faces frank and amused and faintly lascivious. Eames lets his eyes flicker over them and then back to Arthur, who’s watching him, eyes wide and mostly pupil, gaze never leaving Eames’ face. “Dream us somewhere better, Arthur, please?” Eames says, feeling suddenly disinclined to have sex with Arthur while anyone’s watching, even if that ‘anyone’ is only his own mind.

Arthur doesn’t argue, just changes the dream around them with that seamless dreamspace shift, and suddenly they’re both naked, somewhere featureless and dark and warm. Eames presses Arthur down into—the mattress, he realises; they’re in a bedroom, and Arthur’s dreamt away their bruises and sweat as well as their clothes—and settles himself over Arthur just the way he’d been before, his knees on either side of Arthur’s thighs, his forearms caging Arthur in. Arthur gives a shuddery breath and uncoils, just a little. There’s a sheen of sweat on his collarbone; it’s distracting.

“There,” Eames says, pleased. This isn’t a thing he’d thought to want, but it’s lovely, all the same, having all of Arthur’s bare skin pressed against his, Arthur spread out trustingly beneath him. “That’s better, hm?” 

Arthur smiles, a tiny smile Eames doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. “Yeah, Eames, yeah,” he says, sounding hazy and pleasure-drugged. 

“Good,” Eames murmurs, not really paying attention to what he’s saying, “good, that’s good, Arthur,” because his mind is busy spinning out ways to get Arthur to give up control, to get Arthur to let go. “Give me your hands,” he says, and Arthur shifts obligingly, letting his arms flop onto the mattress behind his head. Eames shifts so he can rest some of his weight against Arthur. “Tell me if I’m too heavy, darling, hm?” he says, but Arthur just shakes his head no, a quick little jerk. 

“Feels good,” he says. “I like this, you feel good,” and Eames brushes a kiss against his lips. He wouldn’t have thought Arthur, scowling brusque stubborn Arthur, would be like this, pliant and yearning, but here he is, and Eames finds he rather likes it. Second new discovery of the job, he thinks, and laughs a little, to himself. 

“There, Arthur, I’ve got you,” Eames says, grabbing both Arthur’s wrists in one hand, and Arthur sighs again and cranes upwards, mouth pink and wet and soft, so Eames slides his free hand behind Arthur’s head and cradles him there, gets his hand in Arthur’s hair so he’s lying in the circle of Eames’ arms. 

Once he starts kissing Arthur he doesn’t want to stop; Arthur abandons himself totally to being kissed, making little noises in the back of his throat, little gasps whenever Eames stops for breath. Arthur feels good like this, the lithe stretch of his body beneath Eames, the scratch of hair on his legs and chest and groin. He likes the lean solidity of muscle when he leans over to bite Arthur’s bicep, so he worries at the muscle to leave a bruise and then kisses the sting away, which makes Arthur gasp and laugh, ticklish. 

It’s sexual, of course it is; he wants to make Arthur lose control, wants to make Arthur feel so good his brain stops worrying and circling, and he wasn’t lying to Arthur before, mutual sweaty orgasms is a much more pleasant way of accomplishing that end than by losing a fight so that Arthur can get high on endorphins and victory. But he’s surprised at how turned on it makes him, to have Arthur like this, loose and easy and with all his formidable focus turned towards his body’s pursuit of pleasure. “God, Arthur, I like you like this,” he murmurs, and he does: Arthur can’t seem to get enough of the press of Eames’ body into his, doesn’t want Eames to move far, just wants him _there,_ steady and solid. Arthur clutches at his back and arches up into Eames’ body, grabs his hair and hangs on; and that’s hotter than anything yet, Arthur, put-together, self-contained Arthur like this, pliable and needy and forgetting his self-consciousness, and he never would have known, never would have known except Arthur is letting him see. 

“Arthur, can I touch you, can I touch you, please,” Eames asks, suddenly desperate to get his hands on Arthur. He moves to pull away, thinking dazedly of getting his mouth on Arthur, maybe, or giving him a fist to thrust into and a finger in his ass, just enough to make him fall apart, but—Arthur gives a little inarticulate protest, looking up at him with wide eyes, pupils blown, and his voice sounds wrecked when he says, “No, don’t—don’t _go.”_

Apparently Arthur really, really gets off on this, likes having Eames looming over him, likes Eames’ body pressing him into the mattress. “All right, darling, all right, I won’t,” Eames says, hastily. 

He’s hardly sure what he’s saying; the goal of this wasn’t to get himself off, after all, but all the same he’s so hard he can barely think. He nudges Arthur’s thighs further apart with apart with one knee, slides a leg under one of Arthur’s so his hips are canted up. “Just—here,” he says, and hurriedly dreams up some lube, the same half-used drugstore-brand tube currently in the drawer of the nightstand at his hotel, and smears a palmful on Arthur’s belly and the inside of his thighs. He’s probably too slapdash, all told, but it’s dreamspace; it’s not like he’s actually making a mess.

“Here, Arthur, here,” Eames says, and nudges Arthur down the bed a little so Arthur’s cock is trapped between their bellies and his prick slides between Arthur’s thighs, and begins to rock. Arthur’s sweaty and trembling, and the way he’s groaning makes Eames think he’s going to come. “Come on, darling, come for me, Arthur, I’ve got you,” Eames says, sliding his arms all the way around Arthur’s back, holding him still. And just like that, Arthur, recalcitrant stubborn Arthur, lets out a groan like he’s been gut-punched, and does. 

The feeling of it, Arthur’s cock jerking between their bellies, the way he tenses in orgasm, tips Eames over the edge himself. Orgasms in dreams are never as satisfying as real life, but it feels good all the same, rutting frantically between Arthur’s thighs while Arthur clutches at his shoulders, a lovely wash of pleasure. 

“Darling,” Eames says, when he’s had a few moments to collapse at Arthur’s side and catch his breath. “If only you’d said, we could have been doing this for ages.”

Arthur huffs a breath. “God, don’t you ever shut up?” he asks, but he sounds relaxed, and—dare Eames think it—almost fond. 

“You should know better than that, really, Arthur,” Eames says, smiling.

Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “Clearly I should have,” and then he trails a finger idly along the black lines of the tattoo on Eames’ bicep and says, “Listen, Eames, I was thinking—”, and that’s when the strains of something classical and minor-key, Arthur’s preferred wake-up music, drift around them.

* * *

At least sex in a dream doesn’t leave any tell-tale signs, Eames thinks, though the damp cooling mess in his pants makes him grimace. Arthur’s back in his trousers and loosely-rolled shirtsleeves (his one allowance for the Bangalore heat) and Eames is perfectly presentable, nothing to indicate what they’ve just been doing. 

“Everything all right?” Cobb asks, cautiously, from across the room; little wonder, given how Arthur’d snapped at him earlier. 

“Hm?” Arthur says, coiling the PASIV tubes and discarding the needles. “Oh, yeah, no problem. Eames thought a fight would calm me down.”

“Yeah?” Cobb says, shooting a glance in Eames’ direction. “And did it?”

Arthur grins, that surprisingly bright flash of teeth and dimples he so rarely lets out. “Surprisingly, yes,” he says. 

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Radha says, laughing. “Who won? Must have been a close match.” 

Eames grins. “Close enough, love, close enough,” he says. “Now listen, if you’ll forgive me, I need a shower; I know it was a dream, and all, but somehow that doesn’t make a difference in this heat.” 

“I’ll follow you,” Arthur says, easily. “I could use a cup of coffee anyway.”

“So long as you don’t reprise the fight in the hotel,” Cobb says, and Arthur laughs, and doesn’t say anything. 

* * *

Eames does, in fact, shower; part of him was expecting Arthur to literally follow him, and he’d been unspooling scenarios in his head: polite confrontation where Arthur reiterated his insistence that Eames follow his orders on the job? Arthur blandly ignoring him in the hotel elevator and making small talk about the Bangalore traffic? Arthur following him into the bathroom for sex in the vast marble shower enclosure? Arthur returning to his standard all-business mode, corralling Eames to discuss Settu and his associates, as if they hadn’t just been working each other to orgasm not five minutes previous?

The latter is, rather depressingly, the most likely, he thinks, but in the end it’s none of the above: he doesn’t see Arthur at all on the walk to the hotel, and when Eames gets back to the workspace, Arthur’s there, in fresh trousers and with damp hair but otherwise entirely unruffled, a cooling cup of coffee at his left hand. 

* * *

In the end it’s not the sex at all that gets the better of him, but his damnable curiosity; “I’ve been thinking,” Arthur had said, just before they got jerked out of the dream, and Eames wants to know what he had been about to say. 

“I’m perfectly willing to abide by your conditions, darling, so this isn’t about that,” Eames says, immediately upon Arthur opening his hotel room door that night. 

“My—what?” Arthur says, clearly not following. “What are you talking about, Eames?” 

“Your _conditions,_ darling,” Eames says, waggling his eyebrows, but he’s feeling slightly distracted because Arthur’s wearing a pair of narrow black-framed glasses that Eames has never seen before. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” 

Arthur purses his lips, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, all right,” he says, and swings the door aside to let Eames in. “And, uh— _those_ conditions, okay.” 

Eames ignores this. “Arthur, I’ve known you for years and I never knew you wore glasses. They suit you, darling.”

Arthur flushes a little, but doesn’t look away. “What’s this about, Eames?” His tone is wary; he clearly doesn’t believe that Eames is here to talk about something other than the fact that they had rather satisfying sex this morning after flirting with each other for years. Not that Eames is averse to talking about it, but he’s not going to push. 

“Well,” he says, settling himself on the extra bed. “You said you’d been thinking, just before the kick, and I confess, I was curious.” 

“Uh,” Arthur says; clearly cycling through his memories. Eames feels unexpectedly charmed; it’s not like Arthur to be quite so inarticulate. “Oh, yeah,” he says, expression clearing. “Yeah, I had an idea about how to approach Varma, actually; I think it’s going to make our lives a lot easier.” 

“That’s your idea of pillow talk, is it?” Eames asks, but Arthur grins, unperturbed, and casts a long thoughtful glance at Eames. 

“Listen,” he says, “I was just about to open a bottle of wine. Since you’re here, want to join me? I want your thoughts on the relationship between Settu and Varma, anyway.” 

Eames looks at Arthur, the easy way he’s sprawled, utterly relaxed in his chair, the just-slightly-suggestive spread of his thighs, the curl of his hair where he’s been running a hand through it. “Yeah, all right,” he says. 

* * *

(The job goes off without a hitch, Savtri weeping in her mother’s arms but safe. And it turns out that while Arthur’s dream sheets had been much nicer than the sheets in the hotel, the orgasms really are much better in reality.)

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm me, this fic is titled from two songs I listened to obsessively while writing this; Greylag's "Yours to Shake" and Public Service Broadcasting's "Spitfire." Both have lyrics that seemed remarkably appropriate.


End file.
